It's the end of the world as you know it – brought to you by a Gnome Mage with big balls of fire

Mr Offspec

They are the sort that have been playing multiple specs long before dual specs existed.

Generally they play classes that have true multiple specs, Shamans, Druids or Paladins.

At their most extreme, they will not only swap specs during a run, but characters as well, just to ensure they have the greatest claim to any loot that drops in an instance or raid.

They have the best geared main spec in your raid, with a limitless choice of tweak gear in their bags. Their offspec gear is better than most raider’s main spec gear.

They roll on the item that gives them a 1dps/tps/hps upgrade over their current gear, even when there are 9 other people rolling for a 200 dps increased… and win!

They are the ones complaining that they have to carry the dps/heals because they are 1,000dps ahead of the pack.

They are the ones complaining that they haven’t had a drop in weeks, even though between their toons they are rolling on 6 different specs (yes, they will even respec if the need arises) worth of gear options.

In RL, my boss calls these people heroes. They are the guy in the work place that know everything, that can do everything, and that everyone relies on and goes to for answers.

My boss’ solution is to sack them, because they provide no incentive to others to improve, suck up all the rewards, and when they are absent, or god forbid, move on, leave such a vacuum that it takes months to recover.

My biggest issue with them is quite simply loot based.

If that item we are both about to roll on is going to give me (or anyone else) an exponentially bigger upgrade than it will you… Sod off!

Yes it’s great to have you with your ability to offspec, but if your offspec is already better geared than my main, let’s get me in a position to challenge you on the meters…

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“They roll on the item that gives them a 1dps/tps/hps upgrade over their current gear, even when there are 9 other people rolling for a 200 dps increased… and win!”
This reminds me of something I tried to bring up with my guild, to look at the size of upgrades when handing out gear. The responses were discouraging at best. This one frightened me: “Most times, the decision is made prior to amount of upgrade even being an issue.”

Just to make sure exceptions are known, I’m the type that will pass on small upgrades even in a PUG and I’m a paladin. I try to make sure I have strong sets for both specs (though I do consider ret my secondary unless I announce it at the start) and my healing set is a distant third, picking up unwanted items.

I understand this in *some* situations. Most of the time though this type of thinking is used to gear up the lazy. You know them, they can’t even be bothered to craft upgrades, run heroics, or grind rep. They want to come on runs and be handed loot since they need it most.

You do yourself no credit with this post in which you come across as bitter, greedy and selfish.

Ever since your toon hit lvl 80, many of your blog entries here have been lists of gear you have collected while being carried through raids or deafening whines about gear that you didn’t get.

Unless you are in a raid with an insane leader or master looter, you will never be rolling against someone who is offspeccing the item. As a mage, you will only ever be competing against someone else’s main spec. So your complaint is about having to compete fairly with someone else for whom the item is less of an upgrade than it is for you (I don’t think you know what *exponential* means btw).

Do you think that your green or blue item actually makes you *more* deserving of a high level epic than someone who already has a lesser epic for that slot? Do you think that because you have done less work for the gear you currently have than the other person has for their set, you should be entitled to get better gear than they have, that you should be able to leapfrog them and then start epeening when you do more dps/damage than them as a result? Is that your idea of a fair system?

You say your boss doesn’t like “heroes” who work hard, know their job well and help others around them. That he would fire them for being so valuable that they become a risk to the business if they leave. I guess that means he has no plans to let you go.

People who work hard and put in the hours deserve *at least* a fair chance at rewards and people who sit back on their ass should not be unfairly rewarded for their lesser effort.

If you’re running with a guild it makes sense for the improvement of the *whole guild* that a lower geared main-spec player be given higher consideration for gear than an off-spec player. One person increasing DPS by a slim margin does not benefit the guild as much as improving the DPS of another player by a larger margin. Or heals or tanking stats, as the case may be.

In a PuG… meh, you’re going to get screwed on gear.

About the work example…
This is why the “heroes” get sacked: “because they provide no incentive to others to improve, suck up all the rewards, and when they are absent, or god forbid, move on, leave such a vacuum that it takes months to recover.”

It’s possible to fulfill the first half of the definition, but do it in such a way that you are adding worth to the people around you. Someone comes to you with a question? Give them the answer and show them how to research it on their own. Know how to do something that no one else does? Teach someone. Keeping “information gatekeepers” around in the workplace is asking for trouble when they finally get run over a bus.